1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a feeding apparatus, and more particularly, relates to a feeding apparatus used in an IC test equipment, combining with tubes to proceed feeding process.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In semiconductor manufacturing process, ICs are usually tested after packaging, so as to control quality strictly. Generally, the unqualified ICs, especially for the damaged ICs in packaging procedure, are needed to be rejected after the ICs are tested. The packaged ICs are protected and carried by a tube to deliver to a testing factory or a test equipment to proceed testing process. During testing, the tube is put in the feeding mechanism of the testing equipment, and the ICs from the tube are delivered to the testing equipment.
FIG. 1 shows a side view of a conventional IC testing equipment 100. A feeding mechanism 104 is disposed on one side of the IC testing equipment 100, and a tube 102 is inserted into the feeding mechanism 104 for providing testing ICs (with reference numeral 103 afterwards, not shown in FIG. 1). An inclined temporarily waiting area 106 is located behind the feeding mechanism 104 for reserving the testing ICs temporarily so as to sort out the testing ICs subsequently. A sorting mechanism 108 is located on the temporarily waiting area 106 to sort out the testing ICs on the temporarily waiting area 106. A testing area 110 is provided for testing the testing ICs, and the tested ICs are collected by a collecting unit 112 subsequently.
FIG. 2A shows an enlarged view of the feeding mechanism 104. The tube 102 is inserted into the feeding mechanism 104. While a rotating unit 104a located by side of the feeding mechanism 104 is rotated by driving with an internal power source, the tube 102 is driven by the rotating unit 104a to rotate to a predetermined position and erected. Therefore, the testing ICs 103 in the tube 102 are glided down to the temporarily waiting area 106 by gravity. The testing ICs 103 are tested after sorting out. With reduction of the ICs size and demand of production capacity, current testing equipment can test several ICs at one time, not just one IC. Consequently, a single feeding mechanism is inefficient and time-wasting as a result of the testing equipment can test 4, 8, 16, and even 32, 64 or more ICs at one time.
Accordingly, the testing equipment is usually integrated with several feeding mechanisms. As shown in FIG. 2B, two feeding mechanisms 104 are series connected with the testing equipment, and their two inlets 104b are provided for the insertion of tubes. Each of rotating units 104a is located by one side of the feeding mechanisms 104 to control the tube inserted into the inlet 104b to rotate to a predetermined position and erect, thus the testing ICs 103 are delivered into the testing equipment and tested.
The above-mentioned feeding mechanisms are series connected for feeding ICs, however, each of the feeding mechanisms needs a rotating unit, and that takes space as well as makes those feeding mechanisms not able to be series connected with each other compactly. Therefore, the more feeding mechanisms that are series connected, the more space is taken. As a result, the testing equipment only combined with two feeding mechanisms which take less space is used in the testing factory, hence the production capacity is not able to increase. Furthermore, a plurality of power sources are needed to provide each of the rotating units of the feeding mechanisms to feed ICs, thus the cost is increased. Accordingly, a feeding apparatus which doesn't take too much space as well as feeds a plurality of testing devices fast at one time is required.